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This isn't an accurate reflection of where Excel is currently. Excel can run OLAP cubes at this point, which is an exponential multiplier for it's utility as a quick BI solution. Comparisons to programming languages really miss the entire point of why excel is so useful.

This a weak premise whose scant evidence is primarily composed of pop business airport books. And the idea that the vast, diverse, and nebulous world of management can be distilled to four ideas is a joke.

It's definitely a different experience that immersing yourself in one game and loses some of that richness, but to say RedZone is just like Sportscenter indicates you're not really familiar with either.

For crying out loud...

True, but you still have to pay the Sunday Ticket Premium of 300.00 or whatever it is now for the year. DirecTv paid 12b for it last time the contract was up, and my guess is they don't fully recoup in that in the Premium (part of the value is that it's DirecTv exlcusive). Whether the NFL can make as much selling the package (or a different one) a la carte is impossible to say.

Fox Sports is not fledgling. They've been number 2 to ESPN for most of their history, and a huge number of NBA and MLB games are broadcast on Fox Sports.

Fox Sports (and FSN aren't) but FS1, the non regional Fox network with the highest subscriber fee, is.

But I think I agree with you on a broad level that the sports other than football are going to have to rebuild their revenue structures (probably via direct access streaming) before the cable complex completely collapses. Football is largely, but not completeley insulated.

1. The sports networks these companies have launched are all fledgling and receive a miniscule subscriber fee relative to ESPN.

2. All 3 broadcast their games over the air. Cordcutters undercutting (ugh) ESPN's ability to bid too much on NFL rights might bring down the price for NFL games a little bit, but there's still going to be plenty of demand not tied to cable subscriptions.

I have a sibling that's dealt with anxiety attacks like this for 10 years now, and always had a difficult time understanding what the experience was like until recently he told me "it feels like I'm physically going to die." If nothing else this seems like it will help me sympathize what he's going through.

The reason I think these are more valuable than the pop psychology/business airport books is they don't operate under the pretense that the world's great truths can be boiled down to 240 pages. Rather, learning about people's experiences and stories on there own terms helps you develop a much more nuanced worldview.

For example, I'm reading The Battle Cry of Freedom, an overview of the Civil War, and it's astounding how much more insight a book about something 150 years ago offers into today's society than just about any of the Gladwell genre stuff.

I want to stop, problem is it's just so much damn fun.

Without knowing any of the specifics, this seems to be a good correction of a couple threads of thought. Most notably, startups are not a science, and not every business that is technologically lagging will be drastically changed by a modern tech platform.

It really comes down to value. Seems so simple but I think the startup community would do well to incorporate the importance of creating value in their pedagogy.

I think regardless of which side turns out to be "right", this fight is an interesting case study in the tone of press coverage/sentiment that a traditional large company receives versus that of a startup. And damned if the Zenefits guy doesn't know it, trying to elicit a comparison of themselves to better known startups such as Uber and Tesla.

Stylistically it's an achievement, but moreover it had some pretty concrete and incredibly relevant things to say about modern life's alienation and addictions and the need for raw, earnest, emotional connections with other people.

A novel that works on any sort of level does so by means of compelling, empathetic characters, relatable tones, great storytelling, and rich language. Crowdsourcing fails to be more effective than a single author at all of these elements.

I think reps are really good for something that uses muscle memory, like shooting 3s or dicing an onion. However, I found for learning programming, I got a lot more mileage out of teaching methods that have set up a solvable problem, point you in the right direction, but leave it to me to create a solution.

-Startup advice, especially from this corner of the world, applies to a very specific way of creating a software company through venture capital, and subsequently, aggressive growth. It is also built to take advantage of a highly optimistic financial environment that, to me, seems to be temporary (look at VC's performance as an asset class).

-The main purveyors of "startup canon", if you will, just so happen to directly benefit from more people taking their advice and entering the startup pool. In the most jaded view, Graham and the like's advice/essays/mantras are propaganda that, if more people listen to, directly improves their portfolio. I don't go quite that far as a lot of the advice is sensible and experience based, but it's really important to remember that their advice isn't philanthropic.

-Finally, startups are just businesses. The entrance of venture capital into the equation suspends the normal rules of business for a while, but eventually they do return. And while the way software allows people/companies with little to no capital attack large markets is unique, I feel like a lot of founders would do well to broaden their perspective beyond the relatively brief history of silicon valley when looking for insight on guiding their businesses.

I'd still recommend reading BA because the writing style is first rate (and unexpectedly funny). It's also worthwhile for the realization that, due to it's mid century setting, that while the materials and ideas of the business world have changed since the books time, people really haven't, thus business itself really hasn't changed as much as you might otherwise conclude.

Also the writing style was great, Brooks had a knack for making the players in these case studies colorfully come to life.

Speaking personally, it's the biting cold that starts about now and goes to about mid March that beats you down. But the weather's pretty good the other 9 months of the year.

It seems like it's already started a bit (see urban revival happening in some of the rust belt cities), but I think there's even more untapped value in a lot of our cities.